General Motors’ Agrees To Compensate For Faulty Saturn Transmissions
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General Motors Corp. has agreed to pay about $90 million or more to tens of thousands of motorists in all fifty states for expenses they acquired due to faulty transmissions in more than 90,000 Saturn economy cars. If agreed to by a Sacramento federal judge, the agreement would settle a class-action lawsuit targeting particular models of four-cylinder Saturn Vues and Ion, which were equipped with “Vti” transmissions. Unlike conventional automatic systems, which use gears to shift at a few fixed points, the Vti transmission is a “continuously variable” system that operates using belts and pulleys to shift between the gears. The class-action lawsuit is comprised of all United States residents that own or previously owned a 2002-2005 model Saturn Vue, new or used, equipped with a Vti transmission or a 2003 through 2004 model year Ion, new or used, equipped with a Vti transmission. At least 8,525 new models were sold in California.
The class-action lawsuit claims the Vti system made the transmission especially prone to early failure. The agreement made between General Motors and the class members has been given preliminary approval by a U.S District Court Judge. Once the claim forms have gone out to the motorists affected and returned to the company, and each claimant’s eligibility has been established, the judge will hold a hearing on February 17 to issue a final ruling. Under the proposed agreement, General Motors will reimburse eligible owners or former owners for repairs, car rental, trade-in losses and towing related to the transmission. Preliminary approval for $2,500 in compensation for helping attorneys in the suit was also given to the seven representative plaintiffs named in the complaint. The judge balked, however, at the $4.3 million attorneys requested for their fees; the attorneys contend this is a reasonable amount since it is less than five percent of the estimated settlement amount.
In this author's opinion (perhaps biased, since I am an attorney who represents injured people, although I do not handle class action work), the attorneys fees requested are very reasonable, given the fact that, without these attorneys pursuing this case, Saturn Vue owners would have had little or no ability for compensation or redress. The lawyers involved likely had a lot of risk involved in pursuing this case. This appears to be a good example of the beneficial intent and purpose behind class action lawsuits.